One, TwentyOne Guns
by d0ct0r-d0ct0r
Summary: Gloria lost everything in the fire. Now, she returned to the place where she lost it all to pay one last tribute to Christian. Strong language warning.


A/N: Hey there. I wrote this up for my friends who don't like my slash/yaoi/shonen-ai. It's based off the Green Day album _21st Century Breakdown_. I'm considering it fanfic since they own Christian and Gloria, and I don't, heh.

I don't own the lyrics used in this. I also don't own Christian and Gloria.

Rated T for actual content, strong language warning.

*

The room's floor was bare, its walls covered with marks of posters that had long since disappeared. It looked like a brand new room; but then again, like it was once inhabited years and years ago, like it had once been someone's and now was no one's. The bullet holes that had once riddled the smooth plaster like Swiss cheese were gone. It was barren, and it seemed to be a totally different room in its entirety.

I took a sharp breath in as I gingerly lay my foot down over the fresh carpet, as if afraid that some sort of alarm would go off if I wasn't too careful. My foot fell onto the ground without disturbance, and silently, I walked into the room, like I had so long ago.

It was that same room I'd lived in, that same room I'd protected myself in during the twenty first century breakdown. It was that same room overlooking the boulevard of broken dreams, in the slums at the edge of town. It was that same room that Christian and I had once lived in.

It was the room where he'd died. It was the room where everything I'd tried had gone to waste in only a matter of days.

I could almost hear myself singing the songs of yesterday that were now buried with Christian, underground. _"Sing us the song of the century. That's louder than bombs and eternity. The era of static and contraband. That's leading us into the promised land. Tell us a story into that goodnight. Sing us a song… for me."_

I walked to a wall and felt it. From what I could tell, they put planks of wood over the original walls then painted over that. I couldn't feel the holes anymore. None of them, none of the holes through which the bullets -- that had killed the only man I could ever love -- had flown through. Like the holes that made their way through his heart. _"My generation is zero. I never made it as a working class hero. Twenty first century breakdown. I once was lost but never was found. I think I'm losing what's left of my mind to the twentieth century deadline."_

Maybe we'd made a mistake to be there. Maybe it was a mistake to question the government in the first place. Maybe the Class of Thirteen itself was a mistake. _"Well violence is an energy. From here to eternity. Well violence is an energy. Well silence is the enemy so give me revolution. Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy? Well, gotta know the enemy."_

I looked around the plain white walls that trapped me in there, the walls that concealed the graffiti that had once covered them. Walls that should have been the same as they used to be. Walls that once held our dreams. _"Gloria, viva la Gloria! You've flashed your name in graffiti on the walls. Fallen in broken glass that's slashing through your spirits. I can hear it like a jilted crowd. Gloria, where are you Gloria? You found a home in all your scars and ammunition."_

Christian… he always meant so much to me, even through all the psychological nonsense and the medicines. He always meant everything to me. He was my everything and I couldn't let that go. _"Life before the lobotomy. Christian sang the eulogy. Signed my love, a lost memory. From the end of the century. Well it's enough to make you sick, so cast a stone and throw a brick. For when the sky is falling down you burn your dreams into the ground."_

Even through his heartache and through his pain, through his delusions and hallucinations, through it all, I tried to help him. I listened to the words he'd say through the haze of his self-medication. _"I got under the grip between this modern hell. I got the rejection letter in the mail, it was already ripped to shreds. Seasons in ruin and this bitter pill is chased in blood. There's fire in my veins and it's pouring out like a flood."_

Then when we fell in love… when we fell in love and we were unstoppable. When he asked me to tell him the story of my life, when I only asked a kiss in return. When we were naïve, unscarred, and dedicated. When we were part of the Class of Thirteen, and it was all so beautiful. _"My beating heart belongs to you. I've walked for miles till I found you. I'm here to honor you, if I lose everything in the fire, I'm sending all my love to you."_

As we went on riots together, fires in our hands and in our hearts and in our eyes. As we lead the Class of Thirteen to beautiful successes. As we smiled at each other, looking over the burning light of the burning church. _"A fire burns today of blasphemy and genocide. The sirens of decay will infiltrate the faith fanatics. Don't test me. Second guess me. Protest me. You… will… disappear."_

We challenged them all, we challenged the authorities to try and stop us. They never could. We were just too powerful, and the fires we lit would remain in their memories forever. Some called us terrorists. I called us revolutionary. _"Well now the caretaker's the undertaker so I'm gonna go out and get a peacemaker this is a neo-St. Valentine's massacre. So call of the Gaza! And death to the ones at the end of the serenade."_

And he would sing to me as we prepared, watching me get ready and telling the world how wonderful I was. It was so simple to him -- we were meant for each other. _"She puts her makeup on like graffiti on the walls of the heartland. She's got her little book of conspiracies right in her hand. She is paranoid, endangered species heading into extinction. She is one of a kind, well she's the last of the American girls."_

Then, once we slipped. People -- our people, the Class of Thirteen -- died. I felt useless. I was their leader. _"Desperate, but not helpless. I feel so useless in the murder city. Desperate, but not hopeless. The clock strikes midnight in the murder city. Christian's crying in the bathroom. And I just wanna burn a cigarette. We've come so far, we've been so wasted. It's raining all over our faces. We are the last call and we're so pathetic."_

Christian still loved me, though, even when everyone else hated me. When everyone else taunted me, he still loved me. He'd comfort me through their harsh words. _"The traces of blood always follow you home, like the mascara tears on your getaway. Gloria! You're walking with blisters and running with shears. So unholy… sister of grace."_

In the darkest nights, he would embrace me ever so gently, and he would comfort me, take me away from the nightmares that haunted just beyond my eyesight. _"I'm a victim of my symptom. I am my own worst enemy. You're a victim of your symptom. You are your own worst enemy… know your enemy."_

Then, we came back just as strong as we had been before. It was a kick to the establishment. _"I'm not fucking around. I think I'm coming out. Well, I'm a hater, a traitor in a pair of Chuck Taylors right now. I'm not fucking around. G-L-O-R-I-A!"_

No-one got the message though. We were intercepted by static. _"Screaming at you! I can't see a thing in the video. I can't her a sound on the radio, in stereo in the static age. Billboards on the rise on the dawn's landscape, working on insanity. Tragic ala madness and concrete, Coca Cola execution."_

Soon after the comeback of the Class of Thirteen, we were staying together up here in the apartment room that we'd made our home. There were warnings on the television. The phone was an alarm. And then… the bullets rained in from all over. We kissed. Christian was shot. _"One, twenty one guns. Lay down your arms, give up the fight. One, twenty one guns. Throw up your arms into the sky. You and I…"_

He died in my arms.

And that's what lead me there, a year later, back to the building, to the room overlooking the boulevard of broken dreams, where I'd lost everything.

To say goodbye to Christian.

To say goodbye to the world.

So I sang, I sang him the song of the century, but I sang it differently:

"_Sing us the song of the century. It sings like American eulogy. The dawn of my love and conspiracy. Forgotten hope and the Class of Thirteen. Tell us a story into that goodnight. Sing us a song… for… me…"_

With that, I pulled out my gun and stood in the center of the room. _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. _I shot it around the room. _Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty._ It was my version of the twenty-one gun salute given to fallen soldiers. It was for Christian.

I swung it around to face me, the cold metal pressed against my chest through my jacket.

_Twenty-one._

I pulled the trigger.

Pain. Bleeding. Blackness.

And then… the light.

"_I just wanna see the light, oh I don't wanna lose my sight. I just wanna see the light. And I need to know what's worth the fight…"_


End file.
